87-year-old sues Donald Trump over condo - ‘Somebody had to stand up to him’

Jacqueline Goldberg leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on Friday, May 17, 2013, after testifying in court.
Photo by: Chicago Tribune

Donald Trump you're fired! That's the message from an 87-year-old woman who alleges Trump cheated her in a skyscraper-condo sale.

Jacqueline Goldberg told jurors on Monday she had some serious qualms about suing the real estate mogul but, she said, 'Somebody had to stand up to him.'

Goldberg's comments were made during her second and final day on the stand at a civil trial to examine her claim that Trump perpetrated a bait-and-switch as she bought properties at the gold plated Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago.

According to the Daily Mail Trump looked defiant or agitated as he testified for two days last week, taking pot shots at Goldberg in his comments to reporters outside the courtroom in Chicago.

Goldberg is not the victim, he is the victim, he told the press: 'She's trying to rip me off.' Goldberg reportedly told the court on Monday that Trump wooed her into buying two condos for about $1 million apiece in the mid-2000s by dangling a promise to share profits in the 92-story building, only to snatch that offer away after she committed to buy.

'I felt like I have been conned,' she told jurors.

When Goldberg learned in 2008 that the profit-sharing motive was no longer part of the overall deal she thought she had bought into she was dismayed.

'I didn't want to be in business with someone who would cheat me,' she said. 'How could I know he wouldn't do it again?'

Goldberg is reportedly seeking the return of her $500,000 deposit and other damages, including profit she says she would have reaped had Trump stuck to his offer.

Goldberg told jurors it was the profit-sharing proposal that sealed the deal for her. But in his testimony Trump dismissed the idea that Goldberg didn't know what she had gotten into. He told jurors a provision in a purchasing contract she signed gave Trump the right to cancel the profit-sharing offer and that she bought the condos anyway. 'And then she sued me,' he shouted, raising his arms. 'It's unbelievable!' Testimony in the trial concluded yesterday and jurors have now begun their deliberations.